With the best filmmakers, the instant their latest movie arrives at your local theater, it’s easy to begin looking forward to the next one. Paul Thomas Anderson‘s The Master is now playing and though it was five years between that and his last film, he’s had his follow-up in mind for sometime. It’s an adaptation of Thomas Pynchon‘s Inherent Vice, “which follows a burnt-out detective who gets roped into a caper revolving around a real estate mogul.”

Anderson was in New York this week, appearing on The Daily Show, CBS This Morning as well as Sirius XM and there he spoke at length about the film. He discussed some of the problems he’s finding in adaptation, confirmed he’s writing with some actors in his mind (Robert Downey Jr. has publically expressed interest) and more. Read his quotes after the jump.

Thanks to Cigarettes & Red Vines for these quotes, which came from the Sirius XM interview. Here’s what Anderson had to say about the difficulties in adapting the book:

The hardest thing is just trying to find how to take 400 great pages and turn it into ideally 110, maybe 120 script pages. And it’s just difficult to do. There’s no shortage of great things on every paragraph and every page. So, it’s a very uptown problem to have. It’s not like, ‘Oh God, what am I going to do with this turd?’ It’s just not that at all. It’s like somebody dumped bags of gold in front of me and I can only take so much with me. What do I do?

Here’s what he had to say about why he loves Pynchon:

I’ve always loved his work, his books are just dynamite to me. [He] was always a big influence, [his books are] filled with so much humor and so much craziness and thoughtfulness. Somewhere between fart jokes and kinky sex and just such humanity and delicateness. That was just stuff that I gobbled up, his books. So this is one that, I dunno, we’ll try. We’ll see.

Finally, here’s his answer to the question if he’s been writing with someone in mind:

Yeah but I can’t quite put my finger on it and I wouldn’t want to name names out loud or anything to jinx it or something like that. But they’re such well-drawn characters it’s going to be really fun to go and try to do that. Hopefully soon.

Having not heard the full interview, I’d be curious if Downey was mentioned after that, but maybe someone can confirm in the comments (EDIT – He was not.) Here’s hoping PTA doesn’t take a long break again.